520 Bridge among finalists vying for $1.1 billion pot

County could get $150 million

By DEBERA CARLTON HARRELL, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Thursday, June 7, 2007

OK, so it's not exactly "American Idol." But a King County proposal to reduce congestion in the SR 520 corridor is among the finalists in a nationwide bid for tight federal transportation dollars, county officials said Thursday.

The multifaceted plan, which includes high-tech tolling, telecommuting and increased transit across the Evergreen Point Bridge, could provide $150 million to ease bridge traffic should the county be selected from among nine metropolitan finalists.

The proposal, done jointly with the Puget Sound Regional Council and the Washington State Department of Transportation, is the only county proposal among nine finalists. The other eight are cities -- Denver, New York, Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Minneapolis/St. Paul, San Diego and San Francisco. They are among an initial 27 cities vying for a $1.1 billion pot of U.S. Department of Transportation money aimed at reducing traffic congestion on big-city freeways.

Up to five winners will be announced in early August, officials said.

"We beat out 18 other cities -- and $150 million is real money," Ron Posthuma, assistant director for King County's Department of Transportation, said of the proposal, dubbed the Lake Washington Urban Partnership Proposal.

Should the county succeed, the funding would help buy high-tech equipment to allow electronic tolling instead of traffic-slowing booths; purchase up to 45 new Metro buses to spur more high-occupancy vehicle ridership, and help develop employer partnerships to increase telecommuting, said King County Executive Ron Sims.

The tolls, to be implemented by January 2010, would help raise money toward a new bridge replacement, Posthuma said.

The Washington State Transportation Commission, which has the final authority in setting toll rates, has not determined the toll amounts. But a recently announced 520 funding strategy, part of the RTID/Sound Transit transportation package on the November ballot, assumes an estimated $700 million to $1.2 billion in toll revenue could be raised to help finance the $4.4 billion new bridge.

To reach those figures, Posthuma said, fares of $2 each way ($4 round trip) have been suggested on the current bridge, and $3 each way ($6 round trip) once the bridge is completed.

"Nobody's decided for sure what the toll will be, but everybody agrees that the bridge will have to be tolled (to ultimately replace the bridge)," Posthuma said.

In the meantime, tolls and the other proposed strategies will help reduce traffic by discouraging single-occupancy vehicle travel. Reducing traffic along the corridor, important for the region's economy, also will help reduce greenhouse gases caused by auto emissions -- a county as well as state and city of Seattle goal, Sims said.

Sims and other county officials said the money is critical, not just to ease congestion in the interim years before the 520 bridge can be replaced, but also because federal transportation dollars are shrinking.

A federal transportation trust fund, which in the past has provided dollars for various construction projects such as the Interstate 90 bridge, has been squeezed by other federal priorities, including the federal deficit, Medicare and Social Security, they said.